Children's right to help shape services must be recognised

I represent the views of children throughout England receiving social care services, including looked-after children, those living away from home in residential education and care leavers.

The message from children about how leaders of children’s services can promote children’s rights and views is threefold. First, leaders must routinely and regularly seek children’s views and experiences, and offer them a choice of methods of expression wherever possible. Second, they should genuinely take children’s views as recipients of services as seriously as the views of managers and providers – children are no more or less likely to be biased. Third, they should consider children’s wishes, feelings and concerns when monitoring, developing and changing service provision.  

Children have also told us that professionals should ask them about which services to prioritise in the face of budget cuts. They want to offer constructive input.

Over the 10 years that the Office of the Children’s Rights Director has sought and reported children’s views, a number of key policy themes has emerged.

Not surprisingly, one of these is what children believe are their most important rights. The top 10 include the right to be protected from abuse, to have an education and not to be discriminated against because of race, colour, sex, language, disability, language or beliefs. Children also want protection from bullying and to keep in touch with parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, wherever they live.

These last two rights were proposed by children themselves and are not currently included in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, or in other UK rights legislation.  

While I do not subscribe to the principle that a child’s rights are contingent on their acceptance of responsibilities, it is clear that children accept that separately from their rights, they also have responsibilities that grow with age. Children say their responsibilities include having accountability for behaviour and actions, making use of their education, showing respect to others, looking after themselves and others and carrying out responsibilities around the house.

Those same principles of accountability, respecting the perspectives of others, and taking responsibility for one’s own actions and for the wellbeing of others, can readily be applied to those of us who manage or lead organisations working with children too.

I have a different and more specific role than that of the children’s commissioner; under current government plans, the roles of the children’s commissioner and my own will both be replaced by a new combined Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England, some two years hence and dependent on legislation. It is important that the new organisation takes up the leadership role for the rights and views of looked-after children as a particularly vulnerable group.

HOW TO LEAD SERVICES FOR LOOKED-AFTER CHILDREN: WHAT CHILDREN SAY

• Treat each child as an individual. Don’t assume that a child needs what you think is best
• Assess the best placement for the individual. Don’t have a hierarchy that assumes adoption is better than fostering or fostering is better than a children’s home  
• Make sure that children in care get what they are entitled to under the law  
• Take each child’s wishes into account, according to their understanding, not age. Give the child someone to call upon if things go wrong
• Don’t separate brothers and sisters in care or in adoption
• Select staff and carers carefully. They are the most important single factors in the life of a child in care
• When making a placement, have a choice of at least two available. Check how the child is settling in and switch rapidly to a backup if necessary
• Give children in care extra help without making them stand out from other children
• Many children in care face bullying and prejudice. Counter this and promote a positive image of children in care
• Most children tell a friend about abuse before an adult. Children and young people need to know what to do if a friend discloses abuse or ill treatment to them

Dr Roger Morgan OBE, children’s rights director for England